URLs du Jour

The disgrace of US poverty, now necessarily seen in the context of a
globalized economy, is a footnote to the smoldering catastrophe of world
wide disparities between rich and poor. Cities, especially in the
southern hemisphere, teem with desperate people, and no system of
authority or organization seems remotely able to respond.

Today brings a welcome whiff of reality from Mary Anastasia O'Grady,
writing in the WSJ:

Not only did the world-wide trend toward greater economic liberty hold
steady over the past year, but the incomes of poor individuals across
the globe are rising as result. The world isn't only growing richer. The
gap between the per-capita income of have-not populations and that of
the developed world is narrowing.

This is in the context of this year's release of the 2007
Index of Economic Freedom, which has good news (the US
is the fourth-freest economy in the world) and bad (we're only
number 4). You can buy the dead-trees
report at the link, or download it for
free. The report's conclusions are not surprising: if you really care about
improving the economic conditions of great masses of people, you
need to not prattle about "economic justice", but instead
encourage economic liberty.

Fearless prediction: James Carroll will not read it.

Also yesterday, I referred
to a survey showing the dismal knowledge of college students
on all matters pertaining to American government and history. But perhaps
that performance isn't all that surprising when college faculty and
administration themselves
have only a dim grasp of (say) the First Amendment. Today's reminder
of that sad fact comes from FIRE,
which is doggedly trying
to get Marquette University to clarify or justify its free speech
policies, triggered by its censorship of
a Dave Barry quote from last year. Marquette's responses have been
(so far) confusing and contradictory. Currently they seem have adopted
the "stick fingers in ears, hum loudly" strategy.

Of course, this whole First Amendment thing can be confusing even to
the folks who take oaths to preserve, protect, and defend it.
Prof Bainbridge notes
the latest antics from Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is
threatening to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine". Worse, he's in
posession of even more power these days, recently named chair of a
subcommittee that overlooks the FCC.

Kucinich is quoted as saying

We know the media has become the servant
of a very narrow corporate agenda … The entire domestic agenda has been
ignored while the focus has been on the acceleration of wealth upwards.

In short: a Congressman attempting to use his power to get the
media to slant things more to his liking.
Gee, it's wonderful to see that whole liberal/libertarian alliance thing
working out so well.

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